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milk. "We are found,"
he whispered. His eyes were huge and frightened.
"Too late," Krispos said fiercely, trying to restore his spirit. "We have
Harvas now, not the other way round." The words were hardly out of his mouth
before a wall of blackness sprang up in front of the column. It stretched
north and south, far as the eye could see. The troopers in the lead quickly
reined in to keep from running into it headlong.
It did not dishearten Krispos. "There, you see?" he said to Trokoundos, "it's
the same paltry trick he used to slow down the army south of the mountains.
One touch from you then and the whole silly wall just disappeared. Does he
think to fool us the same way twice?"
Trokoundos visibly revived. "Aye, you're right, your Majesty. He must indeed
be panicked, to forget he already used this illusion against us. And a
panicked sorcerer is a weakened sorcerer. Let me get rid of this phantasm, and
then on to the attack."
The soldiers in earshot yelled and clapped. They swatted Trokoundos on the
shoulder as his smooth-gaited gray approached the barrier with mincing steps.
The mage dismounted a few feet away, walked straight up to it. He stretched
out a hand, leaned forward, shouted, "Begone!"
Far, far off in the distance, Krispos thought he heard a woman's voice crying,
"No! Wait!" He shook his head, annoyed at his ears' playing tricks on him. In
any case, the cry came too late. Trokoundos'
forefinger had met the wall of blackness.
As they had before, lightnings crackled round the mage. Men who had not been
close by when he pierced the barrier south of the mountains cried out in alarm
and dismay. Krispos sat smiling on his horse, waiting for the barrier to
dissolve.
Trokoundos screamed, a raw, wordless sound of terror and agony. His spine
spasmed and arched backward, as if it were a bow being bent. He screamed
again, this time intelligibly. "Trap!" He flung his arms out wide. His back
bent still farther, impossibly far. He cried out one last time, again without
words.
His hands writhed. The motions reminded Krispos of sorcerous passes. If they
were, they did no good.
With a sound like that of a cracking knuckle but magnified a thousand times,
Trokoundos' backbone broke. He fell to the ground, limp and dead.
The black wall Harvas Black-Robe's black wall remained.
Along with his soldiers, Krispos stared in consternation at Torkoundos'
crumpled corpse. What would
happen to him now, with his own chief wizard slain and Harvas all too aware of
exactly where he was?
You'll die in whatever dreadful way Harvas wants you to die was the first
answer that sprang to mind. He cast about for a better one, but did not find
any.
Shouts came from the right flank of the column. The Kubratoi who had briefly
attached themselves to
Krispos' force were galloping off as fast as their little ponies would take
them. "Shall we pursue?" Sarkis asked.
"No, let them go," Krispos answered wearily. "You can't blame them for
changing their minds about our chances, can you?"
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"No, Majesty, not when I've just changed my own." Sarkis managed a grin, but
not of the cheery sort it looked more like the snarl of a hunting beast
brought to bay. "What do we do now?"
To his relief, Krispos did not have to answer that at once. A trooper from the
rearguard rode up, saluted, and said, "Your Majesty, there's a party of maybe
fifteen or twenty horsemen coming up on us from behind."
"More Kubratoi?" Krispos asked. "They'll turn tail when they see the mess
we're in." His eyes flicked to
Trokoundos' body again. Soon, he knew, he would feel the loss of a friend as
well as that of a mage. He had no time for that, not now, not yet.
The trooper said, "Your Majesty, they don't look like Kubratoi, or ride like
'em, either. They look like
Videssians, is what they look like."
"Videssians?" Krispos' rather heavy eyebrows drew together over his nose. Had
Mammianos sent men after him for some reason? If he had, would Harvas have
spotted the party because it was not warded?
And could the evil wizard have been led from that party to the flying column
Krispos led? The chain of logic made all too much sense. Cold anger in his
voice, Krispos went on, "Bring them here to me, this instant."
"Aye, your Majesty." The trooper wheeled his horse and set spurs to it. The
animal squealed a loud protest but quickly went into a gallop. Clods of dirt
flew up from its hooves as it bounded away.
Krispos fought down the urge to ride after the fellow, making himself wait.
Before long the trooper returned with the band of which he'd spoken. By their
horses, by their gear, they were Videssians, as he'd said. As they drew
closer, Krispos' frown deepened. He recognized none of them that he could see,
though some were hidden behind others. Surely Mammianos would have sent out
someone he knew.
"Who are you people?" he said. "What are you doing here?"
The answer came from the back of the group. "Majesty, we are come to give you
aid, as we may."
Krispos stared. So did every man who heard that light, clear voice or saw the
beardless, sculptured profile beneath that conical cavalry helm. Tanilis might
don chain mail, but no one anywhere would ever mistake her for a man.
With an effort, Krispos found his own voice. "My lady, the good god knows
you're welcome and more than welcome. But how did you track us here?
Trokoundos was sure he'd screened off the column from sorcerers' senses. Of
course, Trokoundos proved not to know everything there was to know." His mouth
twisted; he jerked his chin toward the mage's corpse.
Tanilis' eyes moved with his gesture. A slim finger sketched the sun-circle
above her left breast. She said, "Honor to his skill, for had I depended on
finding your soldiers, I should not have been aware of their
true path till far too late. But I sought you with my magic, your Majesty; our
old ties of friendship made that possible where the other would have failed."
"Aye, friendship," Krispos said slowly. Their ties had been more intimate than
that, back a decade before when he'd wintered in Opsikion, helping Iakovitzes
recover from a badly broken leg. He studied her. She was ten years older than
he, or a bit more; her son Mavros had been only five years younger. Some of
her years showed, but not many. Most of them had only added character to a
beauty that had once been almost beyond needing it.
She sat her horse quietly, waiting under his scrutiny. She did not wait long;
that had never been her way.
"However skilled your mage was, in Harvas Black-Robe he found one stronger
than himself. Do you think Harvas sits idly on the other side of that wall he
made, that wall black as his robes, black as his heart?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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